The Portland daily press., 1887-05-17
PERSONAL AND PECULIAR.


Scales are now made so delicate that sig
nature on piece Of paper with a soft lead
pencil can be weighed.
1t is reported that the Pope and the Car
are in communication respecting reunion
of the Roman and Greek churches.
Henry Laboucehre writes that at recent
reception given him by Queen Victoria, the
most beautiful dresses, as usual, were worn
by American ladies.
Brooklyn Bridge is to be painted to pre-
serve the metal, and 10000 pounds of paint
will be required to do it in the most econom-
ical manner.
An Alsatian who tattooed himself all over
with "Vive la France" was imprisoned for
six months when no came to be examined
for admission to the German army.
Mr. S. c. Bartlett, son of the president of
Dartmouth College, will next fall become an
instructor in English in the American Mis-
sionary Training School at Kioto, Japan.
A st. Louis newspaper casts gloom over
the jubilee in England by repeatedly calling
Queen Victoria "Mrs. Victim" If Prince
Albert had not been Prince, he would have
been called Victim.
Near Oakville, W. T., is the burnt stump
of cedar tree, probably the largest on rec
ord 1t is hollow shell. fifty feet high,
eighty-seven feet in circumference one foot
from the ground. The cavity is twenty-sey-
en- feet at its largest diameter.
Ever since the year that General Custer
camped at Yankton. Oak, there has been a
heavy crop of blue grass on the old camp
ground 1t is supposed that the Inflated
command carried baled blue grass for forage
and the scattered seed took root.
A young woman of Beaver Falls, Pa, is SO
charged with electricity that hairpin which
she wore in her head all day was magnetized
enough to hold up sixty-nine needles by their
points. When the young woman's hair is
stroked in the dark it emits sparks, and to
touch her is to receive shock as from a
magnetic battery.
A young lady having askee Moltke and Bis
marck to favor her with few words in her
album, the former wrote
''Lies pass away, truth lives for aye"
To which the latter added
"In yonder world full well know
Truth will at last the victory gain;
But 'gainst the lies told here below
A Marshal cen win fight in yain."
Last Friday Jefferson Davis received con-
CALCULATIONS, it being the twentieth anniyer-
sary of his release on bail. The Boston
Transcript says: "By tho way, what ever
became of the case? Was it mol pros'd, or
did it collapse because it couldn't hold up
The only point of interest in the affair is the
signature of Horace Greeley on the bail
bond"
Miss Mary Tininghast is one of the most
successful among the women who have made
business of decorative art. Vanderbilt
once paid her $4,000 for inventing new
kind of tapestry hangings for his houses
She supplied the designs for the stained glass
window just erected in Grace church, New
York, representing Jacobs Dream. The
angels ascending and descending the ladder
are full Of life and vig0r, and the window
ranks with the best of modern decorative
work.
In 1916 an English Customs official was
superannuated, with a pension of forty
pounds year, at the age of sixty-seven. He
died in 1852, his widow concealed this and
drew the pension till 1875, then, having in
structed her SON and daughter as to the nee
essary procedure, died. They drew the
forty pounds regularly till last March. Then
there was an overhauling of Customs ac-
counts, and it occurred to the officials that
their pensioner was either fraud or a prod
truth, and the brother and sister, aged re-
spectively SO and 76, were brought up for
light punishment.
Six sailors from the United States steam
ship Dale were detailed, the other day, to as
sist in decorating church at Washington for
the Grand Army reunion. On reaching the
church they found the stars and stripes
spread along one of the aisles. who put
that flag down there?" angrily asked the
leader Of the sailors. Mr." said by
stander, Ito save the carpet" ut has got
to come up. You may have good Christians
here, but you are mighty poor Americans.
Come aboard the Dale and you will see every
hat taken off as that emblem comes down."
The flag came up.
At least one American college proposes to
adopt the English custom of distinctive
college dress. The University of Pennsylva-
ma intends to have its students and officers
put on the black gown distinguishing under
graduates by a silk cord of proper color along
the margin OF the gowns yoke, bachelors by
the color OF the yoke itself, and masters and
doctors by narrow band down the front of
the gown. Art students will be marked
with dark blue, philosophical with medium.
and scientific with light blue; law Students
purple; medical, crimson; dental, pink !;
yetinary, cardinal, and divinity students,
black.